Pieces of October

Text goes here.

Nah, I should really throw a quick something to go with the images.

I put a stop to the whole “condensation” series because I no longer had to catch up. Only took me four posts and fifty-five photos to tell all that’s happened since the end of July and until the end of September. I hope I don’t lose track again, or at least not two months’ worth of track.

As is usual with the world, the Christmas ads came early. Not as early as July, as I think has been the case in the past, but starting this current month. October 31st is yet another day for us, as things such as Halloween and Samhain are generally not observed here, so all businesses go straight for the December holiday offers.

My nephew started school yesterday (Tuesday). Well, pre-school. Not sure what level he might fall into, as he is just one year of age. The point is that, with his being at that place for most of the day, not as many schedule adjustments are required in order to take care of him, and I get a bit more alone time, which is good. It’s good because it’s only when I’m alone that I feel like cleaning up (which I did the Sunday before last) or doing a bit of work and I’ll be able to do some things until college starts up again.

Speaking of college, it seems as though I just have to assume that my monograph request will be accepted and I’ll only be informed of anything if there’s something wrong with the request. I was told last month that I should call to check the status of my request and they said that they were still getting those and had not yet begun going through them. At the bottom of the form I had to fill, it says that a list of accepted requests will be published on the web site, so I’m checking it almost every day.

What else goes here … okay. To save me a bit of time, I’ve added most of the web sites that I check every day into Google Reader. I only had a handful of those before but, now that they’re all there and that I can see the number of unread articles, I realize how much time I wasted by visiting them separately, even when there was nothing new. Serious waste.

As I mentioned before, I cleaned up a bit. I was alone in the apartment, and my brother had organized his side of the closet (yeah, we share the room), so I decided to do my part and tidy up my site of the bookshelf. My mother came home as soon as I was about to start, so I gave up on it. She had brought this iced coffee thing that I hadn’t tried before and, besides being incredibly delicious (Droopy liked it, too), it seemed to have given me enough energy and motivation to clean up … one quarter of my side of the bookshelf. Surprisingly, that’s all it took to fill up that huge garbage bag. It was so full of old college work –drawings, paintings, illustrations, even old notebooks that I had recycled from school– that I had no use for that I couldn’t even tie it closed.

In addition to that, I’ve also begun deleting things from the computer’s hard drive. Not random things, because I’ve not gone crazy (yet), but I’m getting rid of things I’ve downloaded over the years and are just gathering digital dust. It’s surprising how much unnecessary junk has accumulated without me caring much, and how I don’t miss them once they’re gone (since I didn’t notice them much, anyway). One can never have enough free hard drive space, and …

Wait, I said I would write a quick something. How little do I know about the “quick somethings” that I write, after more than a hundred posts.

Here are some photographic highlights of my October.

That’s the end of October’s posts, I think, and it also happens to be the end of my photo folder, as that last image is also the newest one worth showing.

I don’t expect much else to happen for the remainder of the month, so I decided to publish this now and continue to sleep through what’s left of it.

Perhaps November will bring along something interesting …

A brief view of the city

It seems college work, a couple of blackouts and just plain old lack of motivation (and inspiration) have conspired against me, as I’ve neglected this place for more than a week. This upcoming week is a two-day one, meaning I’ll only have classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Should be good for writing a bit. While that happens, here’s a view of city, as it was during last Monday’s blackout:

Apologies for any stitching errors you may find. Did my best to crop them out. Anyway, enjoy your  workweek (badum tish). Bye.

P. S.: This post marks the anniversary of my move to WordPress.com. Just noticed that. Yay, I guess.

Going higher

So, I got third place.

Sorry, I didn’t express that the way I really should: I GOT THIRD PLACE!

If you can recall that post from last week, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. The What Goes Up contest that took place on BlogCatalog ended with a handful of entries, and results were posted on Monday night on the insider blog (as well as BlogCatalog itself, several times). If you’re too lazy to click, I’ll just provide a screenshot here of my small moment of glory.

Apparently, I’ve had a lifelong dream of making movie posters (wait, what?), but I thought it was funny that my entry (that poster I designed) was officially titled “Obi-Wan Kenobi”. I was glad to read that the producers liked the usage of arrows from the logo all throughout the poster. I spent many hours several minutes trying to create a good arrangement and finally got them alternating between pointing left and right. Good enough.

So, this small victory has brought me much joy because  I hadn’t won any contest of this type before, probably because I had never participated! I was missing out! In the end, I’ll be getting an official movie poster signed by cast and crew. So, I’ll be getting autographs without the whole awkward star-struck moments (phew!). Oh, and my work (along with other contestants’) may be shown on the day of the movie’s premiere at the very fancy Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California. California!

I will definitely have to update my portfolio with my poster design, while giving credit where credit is due. Stuff like this makes it more attractive, beefs it up (and it could use an update of any kind, anyway).

While the update comes, watch first place winner polybore’s video on YouTube. Done in part using Blender and Audacity (hooray for open source!), it features the What Goes Up logo 3D-fied, a lot of BlogCatalog user avatars, a sample of the movie’s soundtrack and even a small contribution by yours truly near the end. If your connection is made of awesome (read: very fast), make sure to watch the video in HD!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to continue my efforts to wipe the grin off my face before I end up looking like Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker.

Going up

Whew … my nephew’s first birthday party sure took its time, and my eyelids feel heavy. The long weekend hasn’t turned out as I wanted it to, but that’s an issue for another post. Meanwhile …

This is my entry for the What Goes Up movie contest. If you have no idea what this contest about, you better click! What Goes Up is an independent movie about a troubled New York reporter who goes to a small town New Hampshire to cover what’s being said about Christa McAuliffe, who was to become the first teacher in space, prior to the launch (the film takes place in 1986, a week before the Challenger disaster).

Now, instead of doing that, he follows an unusual group of kids whose teacher, Mr. C, has apparently committed suicide. It seems the students were very fond of Mr. C, as they don’t hold back when it comes to expressing the sadness of their loss. Rather than follow his assignment about Christa McAuliffe, the town’s hero, he decides to write an article about the students, who found a hero of their own in their teacher. Eventually … things happen. As I haven’t actually watched this film (yet), that’s as much plot as I can give away.

The movie stars Steve Coogan as Campbell Babbitt (the troubled reporter), Molly Shannon as Penelope (a teacher), and a group misfits … no, wait. There’s a group of misfits portrayed by actors, among which are Josh Peck, Hilary Duff and Olivia Thirlby. That came out better. There are many others, of course (like Third Watch’s Molly Price), but I don’t want the list to become too long.

Back to the contest thing. BlogCatalog and the What Goes Up insider have teamed up to provide this exclusive contest. As the deadline approached (contest ends on the 21st!), I decided I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain, and here it is.

And that was that. I wanted to make more posters, but it seems this will be my Obi-Wan Kenobi: my only hope (ha!). So, comment if you like it, comment if you don’t!

NOTE: the What Goes Up logo and screenshots, as well as the BlogCatalog logo, are property of their respective owners.

When memes attack

It has finally happened. I thought it wouldn’t, but it did: I’ve been tagged for a blog meme. Not once, but twice!

First, I was contacted by dosox regarding his then-latest post, in which he’s posted six random things about himself. Apparently, he doesn’t like photographers, so a couple of my blogger friends’ hopes for befriending him are effectively dashed. Sorry, folks. Perhaps if you put the camera away for a second …

Anyway, as if that wasn’t enough (I was shocked, shocked!), the lovely (on the outside, it now seems!) sensico thought it would be fun to tag me, as well. I told you, reader(s), I can’t catch a break! I’m pretty sure it’s all part of a major conspiracy to destroy me, or the beginning of one. This would’ve made a nice ripped-off-the-headlines episode of The X-Files, had this been on headlines, and had that show not been cancelled … nearly seven years ago. Yikes. Seven years? Already? Sorry, Madonna, but time does not go by so slowly.

Anyway, I’m supposed to say six random things about myself, say who tagged me (done), and tag six other people. I don’t think I know six other people who might be willing to go along with this, but here go my random things.

1. Procrastination is the secret of my success … or lack thereof. But here seems to be the twist: the more I want to do something, the further away from doing it I seem to be. That’s why college work actually gets done,  and things like a Blender animation that’s longer than ten seconds have yet to happen.
2. I don’t think Seinfeld (the person or the show) is funny. I find it rather boring. Believe it or not,  I like Friends much better, to the point where I will sometimes say the lines before the characters do. My siblings look at me funny when I do that.
3. Tomatoes? Can’t stand them. Not by themselves, at least. I will tolerate a tomato slice in my hamburger or club sandwich, and I love ketchup, salsa and things like that, but I just can’t have tomatoes. They’re evil.
4. I’m an atheist. I’ve told my mother about it a couple of times (and the second time she reacted even worse than the first), and she thinks that I have to “work on that”. Well, it’s been working pretty well so far!
5. Mold creeps me out, especially bread mold. This one time, I was making a small stack of really perfect-looking sandwiches. When I was done, I noticed that one side of one of the sandwiches had a tiny bit of green mold on it. I threw them all away and had to make something else. What a waste, you will say, but, even if I had gathered the bravery to cut away the mold and down them all, they probably wouldn’t have lasted long in my stomach.
6. I’m very interested in urban exploration and abandoned places. I’ve bookmarked many sites and blogs about the subject. Unfortunately, there aren’t many urban-exploration-worthy places around here (they’re all so very dull, in appearance and history), and I’m not really the daring type to be sneaking in just to snap a few photos and post them here. Perhaps if I move elsewhere …

Okay, that’s pretty much all I can say without saying too much. Next time someone tags me, I’ll link them to this post, that’s for sure! I think I may have eliminated half of my brain cell count in this post (and I have my two taggers to blame for it).

Anyway, I’m supposed to tag six people. Have they been tagged before? Will they say “oh, no, I can’t”? I can’t be sure, but here they are:

• roentarre (that’s what you get for being a regular commenter!)
• Arcticulates (that’s what you get for giving me such a nice review!)
• Sandie Lee (that’s what you get for making me comment!)
• Shy (that’s what you get for … blogging!)
• PetLvr (that’s what you get for loving pets!)
• polybore (that’s what polybore gets for using 3rd person!)

Those are it. Will any of them follow this meme? You’ll have to check their blogs!

So, that was me, following a blog meme. How do you like the image at the top? Inkscape, of course.